


Dripping Crimson

by AthenaxVio



Category: Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: M/M, Synonyms of red XD, Vampirism, drinking~, fun times, lovely lovely sappy rough sex idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AthenaxVio/pseuds/AthenaxVio





	1. Lost and Found

It was hunting night. The dark prince rarely got to hunt these days-it was difficult given the recent alliance his older brother had formed with the light kingdom. People like him-people of the night, the shadows of Hyrule-had to be careful who they killed. Who they feasted upon.

There was only so much bland, disgusting animal blood one could consume before they _had_ to taste the rich, ambrosia-like flavor of the light-dweller blood.

This problem-this hard-earned but much despised alliance-often lead his people to relying on either animal blood, or the alcohol-rich filth that tended to dwell in dank, smelly alleyways such as this.

Then again, succulent tasting-albeit prone to inducing hangovers-crimson fluid was better than nothing at all.

 _"Prince!"_ came a hiss to the dark-haired boy's right. He turned his head, meeting the eyes of one of his best friends; the blonde's eyes, normally a bright blue, were drenched scarlet. He must've had his fill already; the glowing red was slowly draining back to his normal blue.

He smiled. "'Sup Red?" he asked, his voice a mere whisper in the dark. Red smiled back.

"I was just going to tell you that I'm heading back to the castle. I've had my fill, and Vaati's been waiting to see if it was ok with you. You know how he is." Two blue eyes rolled, glinting in humor. The prince chuckled softly.

"Go on you two. I'll be fine." he replied, waving the curly blonde-haired boy off. He nodded, and was gone before his friend could blink.

Dark, inky purple hair swished with a shake of his head, and black-drenched irises returned to scanning the alley.

  
A din of loud grunting and swearing alerted the prince to newcomers. A young boy stumbled out of one of the passageways. He looked to be around the prince's shadow age(his light-kingdom age was too old and ridiculous to describe, hence why it is not used here); sixteen, possibly seventeen. His hair was such a pale shade of blond that the purplette almost mistook it for white, despite his darkness-enhanced vision. The shaggy length hung down to the boy's shoulder blades. His skin-nearly as deathly pale as his hair in shade-was mottled black-and-blue with bruises, and fresh cuts welled up with bright vermillion liquid.

Had the prince just deemed the boy useless and searched for other prey, he would've saved himself from a lot of trouble.

However, fate _always_ has a different idea to give instead of what one will want later.

  
Two large men-drunk, from the smell of them-shambled in front of the boy, the taller one kicking him down when he tried to stand up. _'When had he fallen...?'_ the prince wondered, staying where he was but watching intently.

"Leave me alone." The white-blond didn't sound scared, despite his situation, but the emotion rolled of him in waves. The drunkies might not have noticed, but the scene's witness did; the poor, beaten and bruised light-dweller was shaking in fear, struggling to push himself to his feet. The shorter of the two drunks laughed, as if the younger's valiant struggles to maintain his dignity were nothing more than a couple of badly-executed puns.

"I dun't think so boy. Yeh think ya can jest....can jest walk intah this here alleyway like ya own thuh place?" he hiccuped. "Well yar dead fuckin' wrong!" He threw his half-empty bottle of booze at him; with a mighty smash, it shattered into pieces, many of them impaling themselves into the skin of the blonde.

A small spout of cerise-colored mist sprayed, accompanied with a pained cry.

There were no words to describe the smell of his blood. It was like the scent of the finest of wines; as if Salim herself had ascended from her place in Hell to bestow a sacred gift of ambrosia upon the light-world, wrapped up into a minuscule, Hylian shaped package just for the prince himself; and what made it special, was that he could _smell_ his emotions in the fluid-something he had never been able to do before. Fear, anger, uncertainty, guilt, sorrow, and the most potent of all-strangely enough-heartbreak, all coursing through his veins.

His fangs dug into his lip almost painfully. He didn't even realize they had come out in his shocked, blood-lusted stupor. He wanted, no, _needed_ that boy, the nectar running through his body. And he didn't want it just one time. He wanted to be able to drink wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Those drunkies were going to pay now. That was _his_ prey. _His pet._

  
The one who had harmed the Hylian didn't know what had hit him. And that was said very literally; he didn't see, hear, or feel anything except intense pain. The prince stood in front of the boy, staring down at the other man coolly.

Hazy, drunken brown eyes stared back at him, widened in terror. "Wh-wh-who th' fuck are you?!" The shadowed boy snorted distastefully.

"....Hylian scum." he growled, ignoring the question. With a quick, silent movement he sent the other man flying back in the direction he had come, a burst of blood streaming from his now broken nose.

Now that the offending little cockroaches were taken care of, the prince turned his attention to rescue-e. His ash-blonde bangs had a lone black streak edging them(he hadn't noticed it before), and they covered his right eye, both of which were icy grey-blue in color. He looked shocked; he had a blossoming bruise forming on his jaw and his clothes were torn.

"Who...are you?" he asked in awe, before violent coughs racked his body. His savior knelt by his side hurriedly, gently holding him up when he collapsed. The smell of sickness purged his nose, and the prince's eyes softened sympathetically.

"...My name is Shadow." he replied once the blonde's awful hacking ceased. Pale lips smiled weakly.

"You're one of the shadows aren't you...?" he mumbled, giving a slight laugh. "Name's Vio. Thanks. Not that it-that _I_ -really matter, but still." Shadow frowned. He didn't value his life? Had he just given up? Now?

He could see why though. He could feel the fatigue in Vio's limbs and, now that he was close, see how malnourished he was.

Sick, wounded, undernourished-that just wouldn't do.

"Can you stand?" Shadow asked quietly. Vio shrugged, pulling out of his grasp feebly. Trembling, with much difficulty, he stood up, the dark prince rising beside him.

The effort was in vain, for not moments after, he fainted.


	2. Blood and Glass

Shadow lurched to catch the frail light-being. _'So much for walking him back to the palace...'_ he thought. Had he really lost that much blood?

A quick once-over answered his question. The blonde had lost a large quantity of the life-giving fluid, but not enough for him to be in immediate danger; he had merely collapsed from exhaustion. Still, it would be best to get him home and patched up before any of his kin smelt the blood and scoped him out as prey.

Great goddesses of Hyrule what _was_ he doing?

  
Vio seemed to be in worse condition than what Shadow had originally thought; he weighed less than a sack of flour and if the prince hadn't had his hands hooked tightly underneath his thin legs, he would've swore the blonde wasn't latched onto his back.

He could feel his heartbeat against his spine, pulsing strongly, although not quite as strongly as Shadow would have liked it to be; it skipped beats at times, when the boy would start coughing again. When his breathing was calm, the prince could feel the sweet air fluttering against his neck; there was a ghostly sensation of soft yet chapped lips pressed to his collarbone. It amazed him how attuned he was to the blonde, even though he hadn't known him for more than five, ten minutes maybe.

 _'Must be something to do with his blood......which....is steadily becoming a distraction...'_ Shadow huffed, pausing as he landed on the balcony of his room at the top of the west tower and adjusting his hold on Vio so he could get the door open.

Nobody was around, but the lights were on and the sheets turned down on his bed. _'One of the servants must've been here...judging from the way all my stuff got rearranged, I'm going to stake blame on Blue.'_ He rolled his eyes and stepped over to his bed swiftly. He deposited the injured teen on the silk sheets gently and pulled a silver rope cord hanging next to his dresser. A lazy sounding knock on the door met his ears a few moments later.

' _Great. 'Xactly who I needed.'_

"Look your _Highness_ , I've already turned down your sheets and shit-can't you draw your own bath?" Blue complained as he opened the door, bowing slightly so as not to hit his head. Shadow rolled his eyes.

"I didn't call you in here to start my bath. And you're complaining so much, you may want to remember who it is that hired you, and who can also _fire_ you." he drawled. The taller male tensed and looked down. "That's what I thought. I know what the money I'm sending home with you means to you and your hospitalized grandmother. You're lucky you got this job at all; speaking of which you should probably thank Red for sympathizing with you. But anyway that's not what I-"

"Is that a kid on your bed? Is this some kind of new kink of your's or something? For the love of Din tell me he's not dead. I swear to Farore-“

Shadow's glare shut Blue up instantly, seeing as his eyes were still obsidian colored. He'd been around shadow-beings enough to know when they were thirsty. They were short-tempered when they were thirsty; he didn't want to become their next meal. Despite this, being a servant in the castle gave him a job and money he could use to help take care of his grandmother and siblings. He would take the risk.

"Shut up. No, he is _not_ dead, but if I don't get him taken care of now he will be. Go get Vaati for me and bring me some of your light-dweller medicine, bandages, and a change of clothes for him. Are we understood?" Blue scowled and nodded. "Good. Get going and hurry up." The prince turned back to the blonde laying unconscious on his bed. He heard Blue's footsteps storm away behind him, and he called out.

"Please bring some soup, or whatever you can cook that won't burn." There was grunt, and the door shut.

Shadow ignore the dryness of his throat for the time being, and pulled a pocket knife out of his bedside table. A dark red spot was slowly fading into view on Vio's left side, slightly above his hip. His t-shirt, and no doubt his jeans, were grimy. Caked mud adorned his worn sneakers and traveled up to his knees on his jeans. Dried blood stains dotted his dirty, ripped shirt. The prince grimaced. He'd have to ask Blue to get clean bed sheets when he returned.

Starting with the collar, he dragged the knife down lightly, tearing the shirt but not the skin underneath. His chest was a pale as the rest of his body, a few scratches marking the sides and a piece of cloth covering the side where blood was leaking from a deep cut. Shadow grimaced again. He must've reopened that wound when he was running. A dark bruise was forming along his opposite side, over his ribs where the drunkie had kicked him earlier. Nothing looked broken, to his relief.

A brief knock on the door was all the warning he was given before a blur of lavender raced in. Vaati nearly flung himself onto Shadow before spotting the bloody human on the bed.

"Who's that?! Shadow _please_ tell me you didn't-"

"Oh for the love of Salim I bring a bloody, dirty light-dweller home because I feel bad for him-and a few other assorted reasons-and everybody thinks I'm a fucking serial killer!” The prince growled, placing his hands on his hips irritably. Vaati looked taken aback. He flipped his hair out of his face, cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"Sorry...jumped to conclusions...?" he chuckled nervously. "What did you need?"

"A couple of drunks were beating him up and one of them threw a bottle at him. It hit the ground and some glass flew an' cut his arm up. Might of gotten into his leg too, I'm not sure. Can ya use your voodoo to get the glass out?" Shadow pushed Vio up slightly, maneuvering the torn shirt off of his shoulders. He flopped back down with a groan; the prince winced slightly.

A manicured hand pushed the prince behind Vaati as he knelt down next to the blonde. He started muttering softly. Small pieces of glass squelched as they were pulled from his flesh and floated into Vaati's palm.

Shadow glanced at the cracked door to see Blue walking in, holding the items he had asked him to retrieve. He tossed a small jar of red liquid at the purplette. He caught it with ease.

"Please don't drink that in front of me..." he mumbled, causing Shadow to raise his eyebrows. He unscrewed the cap to sniff, and gagged when he did.

Ugh. Animal blood.

He walked off to his balcony, sipping at the foul-tasting liquid. Curse that servant's intuition. "Go get new bed sheets!" he called. There was a loud sigh, and a few minutes later the door slammed much harder than it needed to be shut.

"...Someone's in a bad mood~" Vaati giggled. "He must've run into Red again. Didcha see that pretty little scratch on his cheek~?"

Shadow grunted, having no idea what his friend was talking about. He drained the rest of the jar and set it on a low-lying table as he walked back to his bed. Vaati's hand was dripping slightly with the amount of glass he had pulled out already. The prince's stomach clenched slightly and he brushed a few strands of the black streak away from Vio's eyes.

Vaati chuckled, having caught the movement. He stood up, popping his back and flipping his hair out of his eyes.

"Got it all." he chirped, depositing the pieces in the trash. "Good luck~ Don't stay up too late~"

The prince blinked. "What?"


End file.
